A Clash of Lightnings
by Lucyrne
Summary: ToraDora!-Inspired AU. College Setting. Eventual SoMa. Some say love strikes like a bolt of lighting, and none know it quite like Maka Albarn and Soul Evans. Unwilling to resign themselves to a life of unrequited pining, they become partners in order to help each other achieve their romantic ambitions. As the school year marches on, the two begin to feel sparks of their own.
1. Prologue

**Summary: ToraDora!-Inspired AU. College Setting. Eventual SoMa.**

**Some say love strikes like a bolt of lighting, and none know it quite like Maka Albarn and Soul Evans. In their second year of college, the two misunderstood misfits find themselves instantly falling in love with people they don't have a chance with. Unwilling to resign themselves to a life of unrequited pining, they become partners in order to help each other achieve their romantic ambitions. As the school year marches on, relationships unravel, and friendships deepen, the two begin feel sparks of their own.**

* * *

><p><strong>The Roar of the Tiger.<strong>

Maka Albarn did not want to fall in love.

Personally, she felt entirely justified for feeling this way. Her entire adolescence was a testament to the capricious nature of love, and her very existence was a permanent reminder of a love that used to be. If the daughter of two professors with PhDs in family dysfunction was sure of anything, it was that love was a fleeting prelude to betrayal, grief, and loneliness.

So it was a complete, horrifying surprise when she fell in love on the first day of Intro to Literary Theory.

For the record, Maka was prickly and she knew it. Her friendships had a turnover rate of two to three years, depending on how long she lived in one place. After the divorce, her dad stayed in Death City as an adjunct at the local university while Maka and her mother hopped from city to city across the country. As her mom tirelessly sought out new research opportunities and faculty positions, Maka endured the repetitive cycle of starting anew, making friends, and leaving without a trace. After a while, it was just easier to keep to herself.

College was supposed to be different. For the first time, Maka would be committed to staying in one place for four entire years. Death City University was not her first choice, but because her father was on track to receive tenure, her tuition was sharply reduced. It was more practical to go where tuition was cheap, even if it wasn't the Ivy she always wanted. Regardless of its academic reputation, Maka was going to have the ability to meet and befriend new people, make actual friends, and have an actual life.

Maka also didn't actually _hate_ men. She just found female friendships easier to start and grow—like her freshman year roommate. They had met at orientation the spring before their first semester, dutifully following their orientation coordinator around campus while the pervy high school boys in their group attempted to prove they were men. As Maka followed their tour guide and her headache grew worse, she couldn't fathom that those blundering oafs were to be her new classmates in the fall.

Long story short, Maka's anger had gotten the better of her and she kicked a guy in the shins. In hindsight, this was probably the moment the nickname "Palmtop Tiger" started to take root in the freshman class. As the jerk staggered away and started spreading the first rumors about Maka's violent temper, a perky blonde with a sandy bob and large blue eyes watched Maka with curiosity.

"Why'd you kick that guy?" the blonde had asked. Her bright eyes appeared to darken. "Was he bothering you?"

"He told me biracial was his favorite flavor," Maka replied without humor.

The blonde nodded cheerfully, but the shadowy glint in her eyes remained. "Good. Cock suckers like that deserve getting the shit kicked out of them."

Maka and Patty Thompson were fast friends.

Teenage boys though? That was a more difficult challenge, one Maka didn't really feel like wasting her energy on considering how much teenage boys _sucked_. But she was still a young eligible woman about to embark on the next chapter of her life's journey. If she was going to spend the next four years making friends and possibly dating, she should go into college with an idea of what she actually_liked _about men, right?

At first, it was easier to catalog all the men she hated than the ones she felt attracted to. For example, boys who wore sarcastic t-shirts. Dudebros who took up a lot of room on the bus. Men who felt personally victimized by feminism. Guys who didn't value hard work. Spikey-haired trust fund babies. Redheads.

No, if she were going to fall in love with any guy, he would be charitable. Passionate. He'd use his enormous wealth (this was a dream guy, a complete fantasy, so why can't he be rich too?) for the greater good instead of further oiling the cogs of capitalism with the blood and sweat of the people. Probably brunet. An intellectual, too. Devastatingly attractive.

This guy did not exist, would never exist, but that was the point. Creating and clinging to this fantasy was Maka's best defense against love and all of its entanglements. If she constructed her own soulmate as an impossibly perfect dream man, how could she ever get her heart broken?

When it came to love, Maka was immune. Well, that was the idea.

She wasn't in a good mood when she arrived in class that fateful day, but it got worse when her crusty professor starting passing out the beginning-of-the-semester paperwork. The syllabus was horrendous. Scanning the list of authors on the page, Maka figured that Intro to Literary Theory should have been really named Intro to White Male Circle-Jerks. What else did she expect from a tenured professor? She had spent years watching her mom struggle to get a foothold in academia while less brilliant, tenured professors ranted about their outdated views. Nothing loosened the racist, sexist tongue quite like permanent job security.

Her mouth pressed into a grim line, Maka skimmed the syllabus in the hope of finding at least one woman until she heard a chair scrape against the floor and another student clear his throat.

"Professor, I have a qualm."

Still frowning, Maka dragged her eyes away from the syllabus and to observe what this guy had to stay.

When she first laid eyes on Dean Theodore "Kid" Kidman, son of University President Kidman, Maka made a small, strangled noise as she tried to remember how to breathe.

This was terrible. The boy she had made up with her ridiculous, unattainable standards was standing a few feet away from her, in the flesh. She could not help but gape at his porcelain skin, finely chiseled face, and unusual gold eyes. It was like looking at the sun. Her eyes kept darting away to safer, less blinding subjects, only to jump back to his inky hair and slowly trail down his back and stare at his—

Maka pinched herself. This couldn't be happening, it just couldn't. She was almost offended that this was happening. How dare this happen? How dare—

"As a student at this university, I'm saddened by the lack of diversity in this syllabus," Kid said. A sudden spark flickered in his yellow eyes. "But as a feminist," he said with building outrage, "I am simply _appalled!"_

Was this guy for real?

Maka didn't know if she felt pissed that some guy had stolen her line or overjoyed she wasn't the only person in class drinking the patriarchal kool-aid. She picked her jaw off the floor and watched as Kid deconstructed the syllabus, asking how were they supposed to _learn, _in their first semester of college no less, if the professor just spoon-fed them the same perspective over and over? Maka thanked whatever deities ruled the heavens that she wasn't alone—someone actually agreed with her! And better yet, he was attractive!

It wasn't just his face that Maka liked. She was impressed by his poise, his articulation, his obvious knowledge of literary criticism. Even so, the transition from happy detachment to head-over-heels love was incredibly jarring. In one instant, she was untouchable, but in the next, she was irrevocably smitten. Kid had officially captured Maka's undivided interest without even speaking to her.

In her room that night, Maka couldn't help but express her newfound frustration to her roommate. "Have you ever seen someone so perfect that it literally ruined your day?" she asked.

Patty was flopped on her XL twin bed with her blond head hanging off the edge, painting her nails upside down. "Yep, like all the time," she chirped.

Maka stared at her first reading for her literary theory class, but the words just swam on the page. "I just want to slap his gorgeous mouth right off his gorgeous face."

Her roommate lowered her nail polish and cocked her head to the side. "Who is this?"

Maka's face burned. It was humiliating enough that some guy she had never spoken to was making her heart spasm. No need to make things worse by admitting her crush to someone she was still learning to trust. "No one in particular. Just some guy in class. You see anyone cute in your classes yet?"

"Nooooooope," Patty said, popping the 'p.' "Not as cute as you!"

"Aw, thanks Patty." Maka swiveled back to her desk and tried to refocus on her assignment. She wasn't going to let some _boy_ impact her grades.

Despite her better judgement, that boy and his stupid, hot face became a constant distraction. In addition to looking handsome on a daily basis, Kid quickly proved to be the class heckler. Every time he accused their stodgy professor of forcing his prehistoric opinions upon the class or confronted a classmate about their ignorant views, Maka swooned. Hard.

"Maybe Portia isn't as flat or unrealistic a character as you say," Kid said one day after a classmate complained about _The Merchant of Venice_. "Maybe you find her so unrealistic because she doesn't behave the way you expect her to. I think it is your expectations of female characters that are truly unrealistic!"

Maka's knees blasted apart so fast she almost got charlie horse. _What on earth is wrong with me? _she asked herself for the umpteenth time, recrossing her left leg over her right._Get your head out of the gutter Albarn! _Thankfully, no one in class ever seemed to notice when she started melting in her seat, least of all _him_. She suspected that if they met outside the classroom, Kid would not even recognize her. Despite her vivacious, extroverted personality, Maka could hardly manage to squeak out a word in class. At least class participation wasn't a part of her grade.

Her other classes were a different story. Some days it was like everyone was just trying to get on her nerves. Growing up in a professor's household left her unprepared for the putrid ignorance among rich college kids, and she had easily thrown her entire bookshelf at offending students by Thanksgiving break.

And don't get her started on all the times her papa tried to talk to her in public.

In the midst of the everyday frustrations of school and family, Maka could always return to her crush on Kid. He didn't have to interact with her to make her feel like flying. Sometimes she would stay up all night fantasizing, her chest bubbling with excitement at the thought of talking to him and her hands burning for his touch. It was very indulgent to think about him so much, but it was an addictive indulgence. Though completely unasked for, these fluffy feelings proved that Maka was capable of feeling deep emotion for another person. Real love was possible. She just had to gain the courage to chase after it.

By December, Maka noticed faint whispers everywhere she went. _Palmtop Tiger. _She heard the term here and there since the beginning of the semester while chewing out another student in class or clobbering an asshole with a book, but she had never made the connection that the phrase had something to do with her. As helpful and open as her roommate was, Patty was strangely tight-lipped on the subject. It was only when she heard another freshman whisper it while getting late night coffee that Maka took the initiative.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Maka snapped. The freshman obviously did not expect to be noticed, and he looked like a deer caught in front of an eighteen wheeler.

"Uh, it's a nickname," the guy stuttered. "Cause you're small and cute, like you can fit on a guy's palm, but you're also all 'rawr' all the time, like a tiger." A flash of uncertainty crossed the guy's face. "You are Maka Albarn, right? The pervy professor's angry daughter?"

Maka really did roar as she grabbed his shirt collar and throttled him from side to side._"__What did you just call me?"_

Her outburst only served to confirm the rumors. Patty was very apologetic when Maka confronted her, if not still a little evasive. "I've always thought it's the most amazing, coolest thing that you don't take anyone's shit," her roommate said with knitted eyebrows. "I didn't want to make you feel bad about it."

Her intentions may have been sound, but the nickname was a blow to Maka's self-esteem no matter how Patty sliced it. All those nights Maka had laid wide awake imagining an alternate universe where her crush not only knew she existed, but would take her on romantic walks and brush her hair out of her eyes, the rest of campus was spreading this awful nickname. _Palmtop Tiger. _It was diminutive and dehumanizing at the same time. That fact by itself was enough to make Maka cry in the shower.

What really made her throat thicken was the term's rampant use on campus. If random douchebags she had never seen before could recognize her as the Palmtop Tiger, Kid probably could too. To him and the rest of the student body, she was just a wild animal with a libertine for a father. A side show. A freak. That made her feel lonelier than she ever did moving across the country.

Any attempt she made at getting closer to Kid or making new friends was dead on arrival. So much for giving romance and sex the old college try.

She spent a long time falling asleep with her pillow clutched to her chest, desperately wishing it would transform into a person who could finally give Maka the intimacy she never realized she craved. That, too, was a fantasy that dissolved into smoke the moment the sun rose. Luckily for her sanity and her grades, Maka Albarn was not a wallower. She was a problem solver. If she was going to get through college, she had to embrace her bad attitude, to wear it like armor so nothing anyone thought or said could cut her.

If Maka had to become a roaring tiger, then so be it.

And yet, when Maka spied Kid skateboarding through campus, her mouth would snap shut before unsaid declarations poured out. Despite her reinvention, unexpressed feelings still lingered.

The beginning of her sophomore year, she had had enough. In a night of impassioned fury, Maka wrote a letter. A love letter. She had never done something so cliche, but getting her feelings on paper was both a catharsis and the seed of a potentially awful idea. Letting these feelings simmer forever inside until they ate their way to the surface wasn't healthy. If she was going to put this crush to bed, (figuratively or literally, depending on his reaction), steps had to be taken.

Maka stuck the completed letter and an addressed, but empty envelope in a drawer. That letter was going to make it into Kid's hands someday, and everything would change. She just didn't know when.

Her love letter's journey took a wrong turn once Soul Evans entered the picture.

* * *

><p><strong>The Song of the Dragon.<strong>

The first thing he noticed about her were the thin chains clipped to the belt loops of her cargo pants, bouncing against her thigh in rhythmic, clinking beats as she swaggered to her seat. At this point, Soul had no idea he and Patty were both from the same city, if you could even consider Long Island and the Brooklyn boonies as being on the same planet, let alone the same metro area. Though he didn't know the particulars of where she came from, Soul could tell this was one tough chick.

Which is why he was surprised when he saw that the chick with the cool camo pants captured the ocean in her eyes.

There was a playful light in those eyes, a cheery smile on her face. Soul found the obvious dissonance between her gangster chains and sweet smile intriguing. The girls Soul knew from that prison called 'private school' came in one flavor of feminine. If this blondie was any indication, polos and pencil skirts were not the standard dress code in the real world. She sized up the class up before squeezing into one of the last seats available at the back of the room. On the first day of class, everyone tried to sit at the back of room, Soul included, and it peeved him that this girl still managed to find a seat behind him, out of sight.

Five minutes passed. The Spanish professor was a notoriously late woman, so Soul sat back. Nine a.m. on the first day of college, Soul had not mustered the courage to talk to anyone, let alone the pretty blonde with the cool-ass chains. He laid his head on his desk, willing himself to fall asleep while he still could.

In his sleepiness, Soul vaguely heard some skeezeballs at the back of the class start snickering, whispering dirty jokes about the chicks they made out with over orientation or some shit. When he walked in, he immediately pegged those dudes as the type to drop Spanish 203 because it was too early in the morning. Come to think of it, that wasn't really a bad idea…

The professor was now ten minutes late to the first class of the first semester of Soul's college career. Somewhere between the yawning and the vulgarity in the back, there was a silent consensus that everyone would just walk out at the fifteen minute mark. Soul was in a solid doze when he was wrenched back into consciousness by the chime of a girl's voice.

He picked his head off his desk. The class was agape in shock. They were staring at the girl—Patty, he later learned—who looked like she just won bingo. The two guys in the back looked at Patty quizzically, aghast and uncomfortable. Soul did not catch what Patty had said, but it must have been wild.

The dude on the right nervously laughed, and after tugging at his collar he attempted to speak. "Wow. Um, it's not really cute, you know, when girls talk like that." His voice was small and squeamish. "I don't like it."

Patty threw her head back and laughed, a sound that rang in Soul's ears like clear bells, and her face snapped upright, black in the eyes, and said in sweet English, "I don't care if you fucking like it."

Those skuzzes were visibly startled. Their chairs scooted backwards towards the wall, inching further away as if to avoid Patty's snapping jaws. But Patty did not snap or snarl. She only giggled and turned back around, focusing now on doodling in her blank Spanish notebook. Soul tipped his chair backwards so he could glance at what she was drawing. It was a waterfall.

Soul was charmed and intimidated all at once.

It turned out that "I don't care if you fucking like it" was the only sentence Soul would ever hear Patty speak_en ingles_. From then on, the class was taught solely in Spanish under a harsh penalty of a half percentage point per sentence spoken in English. Their professor didn't give a shit about tardiness or deadlines, but speak a word of English and the claws came out.

The cool thing Soul discovered about language classes was that he could learn a lot about his classmates without going through the arduous process of befriending, hanging out with, or talking to them. After every weekend, break, or holiday, the professor asked the class to make a short speech about what they did. The mandatory monologues soon encapsulated likes and dislikes, future plans, favorite memories, dream vacation, etc. It sucked that Soul had to talk about himself in Spanish on the reg, and he never really meant to learn so much about this girl that piqued his interest, but when she talked, he listened.

-On weekends, Patty usually worked part-time at the campus Deathbucks.

-When she wasn't working, Patty played softball on the university team.

-Her first best friend was her sister Liz, and her second best friend was a roommate of indeterminate identity (Marko? Mana? It was hard to decipher Patty's Spanish accent).

-If she could wish for anything, Patty would wish for enough money to pay her and her sister's education expenses and to travel the world on a horse-sized pelican.

All of the facts Soul gleaned about Patty over the course of the semester were hazy at best. This was a Spanish class after all. On a good day, Soul only caught about half of what she said, and hell, there were bound to be some inaccuracies. It didn't help that Patty's style of speaking was riddled with slang terms and profanities that weren't included in the textbook (Who taught this girl to speak Spanish so well? Where did she pick up all of these Mexican swear words?).

From watching her in class and piecing together her speeches, Soul guessed that Patty was a hard worker, a fearless comedian, and a determined athlete. He also guessed that she didn't really miss home in Brooklyn, that she was intensely protective of her friends, and that she wanted to make her sister proud more than anything in the world.

Soul didn't have to guess that he was falling in love with her.

This wasn't how things were supposed to _go _in college. Soul was supposed to get trashed every weekend and have a string of meaningless hookups, get it all out of his system until he was ready to become an Adult(™). He was doing a good job of getting sloshed with his friends whenever the opportunity presented itself, but the biddies weren't clawing at his door.

When everyone spread rumors that you had red eyes because you either 1) sold your soul to the devil or 2) were addicted to designer drugs, it was hard to get dates.

Patty was never afraid or distrustful of him like the other girls he tried to meet. From their sparse interactions in Spanish class, it was pretty clear that Patty gave zero fucks about most things. Maybe if he asked her out, he would know for certain whether Patty truly gave a shit about his appearance, but he could never muster the Spanish.

Instead, Soul fantasized.

Truth be told, its hard to fantasize about someone you've only heard speak your native language once. There were only so many ways to incorporate "I don't care if you fucking like it" into a sexual fantasy before it became stale or downright scary.

Maybe it wasn't normal for other 19 year-old guys, but Soul fantasized about hanging out with girls almost as much as he thought about screwing them. It spoke of his loneliness, of his frustrating inability to convince people that, despite first impressions and appearances, he wasn't a bad guy. If Patty offered him a chance to be her friend and nothing more, he would sign up in a heartbeat.

Of course, he and Patty weren't friends. He was just some dude in her Spanish class.

Love letters were never his style, so Soul started toying with the idea of burning her a CD. He liked to think he had good taste in music, and mix-tapes were supposedly the pinnacle of romantic gestures back in the day. Why not resurrect the gesture?

So he put together a playlist and burned her a CD. Actually, he burned her a couple CDs. A couple dozen.

Fuck, he wasn't satisfied with any playlist for more than two days. Like composing an overture for his music composition class, Soul viewed most of his early attempts as rough drafts of a concept. What sort of mix-tape should he give her? A mix of his favorites, spanning all genres and musical artists, or a tape with a specific mood or theme? What message was he trying to send? "I don't know how to say soul mate in Spanish but I think you're it?"

He decided to bite the bullet and download "Talk Dirty to Me" to satisfy his sense of irony. It weighed heavily on him that Jason Derulo now contaminated his music collection, but at least he now had a starting point for every iteration of his musical love letter. He hoped Patty would one day find its inclusion in the CD humorous and fitting.

The crush he silently nurtured over the fall became even more intense in the spring. She recognized him on the first day of Spanish 304 (same professor, same Draconian rules), and spoke a rapid string of Spanish asking about his winter break. He was so shocked he could barely strangle out a response deeper than "It was very cold." That made her laugh. He liked her sense of humor. At a drop of a hat, Patty could go from goofy and sweet to gritty and vulgar, and there was no way of telling which way she would go. During their few direct interactions, Patty was more on the "goofy and sweet" side of the spectrum. That meant something, right?

Being the only familiar face in their Spanish class, Patty started partnering with Soul on more activities. This was helpful since no one ever wanted to be the demonic albino's partner. Soul knew he was beginning to get some traction with Patty when she started to call him _hermano._ He objected to the brotherly connotations of the nickname, but at least it was better than what she called everyone else—_pajero._ Though, in all honesty,_pajero _probably applied to Soul more than anyone.

One of the annoying things about language classes was that many exercises were based on holidays and seasons. The class celebrated El Dia del Amor y la Amistad in February by performing a skit in Spanish.

_Patty: I can't believe you cheated on me with her!_

_Harvar: I never thought you would find out!_

_Kim: You were stringing us along the whole time! That is unacceptable!_

_Soul: (enters from right) I was summoned to kill you and eat your soul for hurting these beautiful women!_

_Harvar: Have mercy!_

While the group all received A's for their creativity and well-spoken Spanish, Soul wished the skit went a little differently. He wondered what it would have been like if he got to play a love interest instead of a mercenary, or what it felt like to actually be a love interest instead of someone's idea of a thug.

On that day, he actually found the courage to talk to Patty, albeit in Spanish. Soul asked if she actually liked holidays as drenched in shallow commercialism as Valentine's Day. She replied that she really liked it when boys gave her candy regardless of what day it was,_hermano_. He could get behind that.

They still weren't on English-speaking terms when class registration rolled around. At this point, Patty told him she intended to major in Spanish and Linguistics. She had a knack for it. Soul decided he was going to minor in Spanish, because his grades in Spanish weren't half bad, and there was no way he would ever see Patty in one of his music classes.

"When are you registering?" Patty asked him _en espanol. _"I'm taking Spanish cinema next fall."

"Me too!" he replied.

"Awesome!" she said. "In that class, we only watch movies and write in Spanish. That'll be a change, eh _hermano?_"

Oh, it would be a change alright. He could barely wait for the day he and Patty conversed in English. But that was when everything was going to change.

Soul promised himself that when sophomore year started, he would stop burying these feelings within himself and take a chance. He was going to give her one of those damn CDs he had lying around his dorm and tell her how he felt.

That was before Maka Albarn forced her way into the picture.


	2. Bolt from the Blue

**AN: Thanks for favoriting, alerting, and reviewing my story! Those from Tumblr may recognize the first 1k of this chapter, since I posted it in September. Rest assured, there is more than 6k of new stuff for you to enjoy. Once again, thanks for reading!**

The door of the coffee shop was emblazoned with a familiar green trim, but instead of the trademark mermaid that dotted every corner in New York City, the circular logo slapped on each wall, doorway, and coffee cup featured a cartoonish skull. The most incriminating evidence of plagiarism was the coffee shop's name-Deathbucks.

"How the hell hasn't this place been _sued_ yet?" Soul wondered aloud. He fingered the shoulder strap of his bag, gathering his courage. The overwhelming whirlwind of sophomore year had only just begun, and already Soul felt the weight of his classes hang heavily on his psyche. This school year wasn't going to be easy, but he had a feeling it was turning around.

Soul pushed open the door of the coffee shop, resolute. This year, things were going to go differently. No more rumors that he was a demon some drunk freshman summoned with a spell off the internet. No more whispers that Soul was secretly a mass arsonist, a cult leader, a serial killer, or a death eater. No, this was his year to shine, his year to show everyone that red eyes and sharp teeth didn't mark him as the spawn of Satan. He just had to get over his anxiety and take the first step.

And if that meant finally making a move on a certain sandy blonde, well, he wasn't gonna complain.

A bell chimed as he walked through the doorway and scanned the room. Laptops, cords, text books, and papers were sprawled across almost every table top. What few booths were available were already full, and the table situation was just as dire. He spotted an open space in the middle and cautiously maneuvered through the chairs.

Soul opened his laptop and settled down. No one had really noted his presence yet, which was just fine with him. People didn't react to his appearance with nearly as much terrified violence as they did in highschool or the first semester of freshman year. Last year, his roommate Kid suggested that if Soul was seen around campus often enough, people would just get used to him. Thanks to Soul's small, yet supportive circle of bros, that plan seemed to be working. Deathbucks' usual medley of casual conversation, coffee mixing, and rapid typing continued uninterrupted by his presence. Best of all, Soul didn't even rely on Kid or Blake to back him up. He had successfully struck out on his own.

He fished his laptop charger out of his bag, and while free outlets were scarce, he quickly spied one on the ground, partially covered by the flip flop of the girl sitting across from him. Interacting with college girls was a puzzle he had yet to figure out, but maybe today was his lucky day.

"Sorry, can you move for a sec so I can get to that outlet?" Soul asked. This was it.

The girl briefly poked her head from behind her laptop. "Nah," she sneered before retreating behind her screen.

Her boldness was startling. One look at Soul's mean face usually sent girls running, but she held her ground. Moreover, she was rude. Very rude. Who says no to moving their flip flop for a couple seconds?

Both curious and embarrassed, Soul resolved to reason with this rude girl. He stood up and leaned over her computer, but once he got a good look at her, he jerked backwards in surprise. "It's you!"

Maka Albarn, better known throughout the student body as the Palmtop Tiger, wrinkled her nose in annoyance. "What, do we know each other?"

"You don't remember me?" She stared at him blankly until Soul was sick of the silence. "You slapped me in the face with 'The Count of Monte Cristo' the first week of freshman year."

* * *

><p>It was one of his most humiliating and humbling memories. One year prior, he had met the feisty Maka Albarn at happy hour. Every Friday, happy hour at the Tombs, DCU's college bar, was the place to be between 4:30 and 7 p.m. It heralded in the weekend, and on that particular Friday, it had signaled the start of a new semester. Soul had been dragged there by new friend Blake, who had taken an instant liking to him, and his roommate Kid. It had made him nervous to be in such a crowded place surrounded by people who wouldn't like him, but it was also the first time Soul had hung out with his new friends outside the dorm. Soul had felt ecstatic.<p>

When they got inside, Blake took out a colorful array of wristbands he had stashed in his pocket. "What color is it today? Green? Alriiight," Blake said. He slapped green wristbands on each of their right wrists (and Kid's left wrist).

The place was too crowded to even see the bar, let alone order from it, prompting Blake to push Soul forward. "Do that thing you did in the dining hall. Remember, the chicken nugget line?"

"Uh, you mean the thing where I exist and everyone runs away?"

"Doooo it."

Soul approached the bar. Without pushing or speaking to anyone, patrons quickly vacated their barstools to maintain a comfortable distance from the murderous-looking freshman. The bartenders, too, would have stayed out of Soul's five foot radius if they were not already trapped serving drinks.

Blake clapped Soul on the back. "Way to go, man. Seriously, I'm taking you _everywhere _with me. Welcome to the crew." While it sucked to already be the campus pariah, Soul couldn't help but smile in response.

Kid, staring across the room, released a small yelp. "A group of sorority women just gave up their booth! Get me a gin and tonic, would you?" Without another word, his roommate sashayed through the crowd to pounce on the open booth.

Soul had been holding two triple-well drinks, a whiskey coke in his left hand and a gin and tonic in his right, and searching for wherever Kid went when it happened. As he looked over a hundred heads to find his friend, Soul bumped into somebody. Hard. His whiskey coke, sleek from condensation, slipped. It spilled.

The apologies were out of Soul's mouth before he even looked down. "Whoah, I'm so sorry!"

The girl was a slight thing, short, with sopping wet pigtails dangling by her neck and fluffy bangs plastered to her forehead. His whiskey coke had spilled right on top of her head, drenched her shoulders, and dripped down the front of her blouse. Her small polka-dotted bra was visible through the translucent fabric, as was the deep flush crawling up her neck and heating her cheeks. Soul repeated that he was sorry, that he would pay for her laundry and her next drink, but all she did was stare at the floor. Even with her face cast downwards, Soul could sense a strange intensity about her.

The room was awash with whispers.

"Soul Evans the psycho just poured his drink on _the Palmtop Tiger!_"

"Oh my god, it's like a clash of the titans!"

"A battle for top dog!"

"My bet is on the death eater-"

_Palmtop Tiger? _What on earth did that mean? "Look, I'm sorry okay?" Soul said again. "I didn't see where I was going."

Soul heard a low growling, and his heart dropped to his stomach when he realized its source. It was the girl. She slowly tilted her head upwards, slowly and slowly, until her livid, green eyes finally peeked up at him through wet bangs and furrowed eyebrows. She curled her upper lip like an animal, and whipped a hardcover book out of god knows where.

A shrill battle cry. A sharp impact. Spilt alcohol. The rest was history.

* * *

><p>DCU had a large student body, so it was a relief when Soul didn't run into Maka again for the rest of the year. Now, a sophomore ready to start things the right way, he was once again face-to-face with the Palmtop Tiger.<p>

After listening to Soul remind her of that day, Maka just shrugged. "My copy of 'Monte Cristo' has slapped dozens of dumb guys, so sorry if I didn't recognize you right away."

Soul was thinking up the perfect retort when he heard his name called across the room. It was Kid, his roommate and friend, who had finally arrived at Deathbucks with arms full of study materials. Maka, who had been so bold and mouthy a moment before, immediately slumped out of view to hide behind her laptop screen. Still standing, Soul could see that her face turned a bright shade of red.

"Soul Evans is actually studying on his own volition? I never thought I would see this day," Kid said, striding over to his roommate. He beamed like a proud father. "And making conversation on his own too. It really is a new school year. So, who is your new friend?"

Before Soul had a chance to introduce Kid to a girl who was not by any definition his friend, Maka squawked like a frazzled pidgeon, and scrambled to stuff all of her papers into her bag without sparing one glance towards the two boys. Tucking her laptop underneath her arm, Maka burst out of her seat and stumbled away. The bell chimed as she went out the door.

"I guess she was just leaving," Soul said, baffled.

"I guess so," Kid replied.

Soul ended up messing around on Youtube while Kid peacefully studied across from him. It was a new year, but Soul wasn't _that _reformed. Instead of thinking about Art History or his assignment for Music Comp, he thought of a certain blonde with a tiny frame and a huge temper. The way she fearlessly held his gaze without fear or nerves, the manner in which she staggered away in fright at the sight of Soul's more normal friend.

What the hell was up with Maka Albarn?

Despite going an entire academic year without one tiger sighting, he spotted her for the second time in a single day in the dining hall that evening. Soul wasn't sure how he picked her pigtailed head out of the crowded cafeteria, but his eyes were drawn to her instantly. She was sitting several tables away, alone, nose in a book, with one hand absent-mindedly delivering french fries from her plate to her mouth. As if she sensed his presence, Maka's eyes flicked in his direction. Her gaze held his own for a second before darting over his left shoulder and back to her book.

"There's a free table over there," Kid said, appearing on Soul's left. "Come on then, we mustn't let the freshman steal all the prime seating."

It was only the third day of class, and Soul had already concluded that freshmen were dirty little locusts that swarmed the dining hall and pilfered cafeteria utensils for no damn reason than to get on his nerves. They all looked so terrified all the time, at least when he was around. A couple of freshman girls moved to swoop in and claim their table, but one look at Soul sent them scurrying. Another bitter reminder that while his freaky face was old news to upperclassmen, Soul was probably going to give freshman nightmares for months to come. Great.

Self-conscious, Soul rubbed the tips of his white fringe between his fingers to avoid making accidental eye contact with anyone. Deathbucks must have been a fluke.

The two boys dumped their black backpacks in a heap on the table, marking it as theirs for at least a good hour or so. They walked together to the stir fry line. The prospect of steaming hot carbohydrates usually improved his mood, but when Soul ordered his penne with marinara sauce and spinach, the ravenous look on his face actually made the lunch lady shriek. Fed up, he stared into space, his expression grim.

"You have that evil glint in your eyes again," Kid said matter-of-factly after he ordered tofu, soy sauce, and brown rice. "That usually means you are either entertaining dark thoughts or feeling deliriously happy. Which is it?"

Soul shot Kid a withering look. "I'm just not looking forward to spending another semester convincing people that I'm not deranged."

"Oh come now, not everyone thinks you're an albino Ted Bundy," Kid said. "I know you're alright. Blake knows. Tsubaki knows. In fact, I think people are warming up to you faster than you realize. Just wait and see." If only Soul could be as optimistic and enthusiastic as Kid, who was by and large among the most popular and well known students on campus. Still, those were encouraging words to hear.

They were watching their food sizzle and smoke on their respective frying pans when the third and final member of their inner circle, Blake Barrett, paraded in with a self-satisfied smirk.

"Couldn't get here at 7 p.m. sharp because I was chilling with White Star," Blake said. "He, me, Red Star, and Dark Star, we're planning something _big_. The frosh won't even know what hit them." They shuffled forward in line and Blake, in his usual way, muscled between Soul and Kid so he wouldn't have to queue up with the rest of the peasants. Not that Blake noticed any plebian glares. When Star Frat was on his mind, it usually took his girlfriend with a riding crop to shut him up.

Blake was still talking when they returned to their seats with platefuls of pasta and rice. It was astounding how long Blake could talk about his fraternity without actually telling his friends anything concrete. As unaffiliated men, Soul and Kid weren't privy to the inner politics and rituals of Sigma Tau Rho, and to be perfectly honest, neither of them wanted to be. While they had few interests in common, they bonded over their shared hatred for frat bros and wild, gross parties.

"Dark Star's got a new vat recipe, and we're all gonna taste test it at chapter," Blake said with a mouthful of spaghetti. "Though honestly, I always say that the best vat is just kool aid and everclear. It's a simple recipe, why fuck with it? I guess White Star and Red Star are worried the peasant freshman won't stick around if its not fruity enough, but-"

"Who are you even talking about?" Kid groaned.

Without missing a beat, Blake swallowed his spaghetti and rattled off names. "White Star is Eric, Dark Star is Stuart, but he likes to go by Axel now, Red Star is Jeremy, I'm Black Star, _duh_, Green Star is-shit, no, _Axel _is Green Star, and _Andy _is Dark-"

"Let's just forget all the nicknames," Kid said, rubbing his temples. "It's too difficult to keep all of them straight when you ramble on like this. How about we declare this area," he gestured around their table. "a no nickname zone. Soul, you wouldn't mind this table being a _no_ _Star Frat zone_, right?"

"As a long-time resident of the 'I don't give a fuck zone,' I'll remain neutral." Soul said.

Kid looked disappointed, probably because he was hoping for an ally against Blake's fraternity-talk. "I just feel that when we talk about friends outside our little group, we should use their _real_ names," he persisted. "It's less confusing."

Their louder friend looked annoyed for only a moment before a wide, mischievous grin spread across his face. "What a great idea _Dean Theodore_," Blake said, clasping his hands on the table. Soul glanced at his other roommate, who had pressed his lips together in a fine line. "Let's just call each other our Christian names. That sounds damn fantastic," Blake continued. "It's such a good idea, a god like me should have thought of it ages ago. Thanks a lot, Dean."

"You know what I meant!"

"I'm sorry," Blake said sweetly. "Is 'Kid' on your driver's license? Your birth certificate? If it's not recognized by the state of Nevada, I can't say it, because unlike you, I respect the laws of the land. Respect the zone, Dean. Respect it."

Soul watched his friends bicker across the table, amused, and to make more room for his plate and elbows, he grabbed his backpack from the middle of the table and set it on his lap. For once, all of its pockets were zipped up. It was a habit of his to only zip the largest pocket three quarters of the way, maybe a little more when he was carrying heavy textbooks, because he liked the slouchy "idgaf" vibe it gave him as he sauntered around campus. A visual reminder that he didn't care about people or what they thought of him, which wasn't true, but they didn't need to know that.

After sharing a dorm room with the neurotic Kid for a full year already, it was obvious who was behind Soul's mysteriously zipped pockets. _I'll remind Kid not to touch my shit later,_ Soul thought to himself as he examined his backpack, though a part of him knew it wouldn't do any good. He laid his backpack at his feet and turned to spear a penne noodle with his fork and reenter the conversation-

The sudden _clap _of a book snapping shut caused Soul to jump in his seat and nearly choke on his pasta. His head immediately turned to the source of the sound. It was Maka Albarn, staring towards him with intense green eyes, holding a thick novel between her quivering hands. He glanced around and rubbed his mouth. Was she staring at _him_? Was there marinara sauce on his face? Oh god, why was she maddogging him so hard? What did he did he ever do to her? Maka puffed her slowly reddening cheeks and began to collect her things with haste. It was like watching her escape Deathbucks again, but this time she was even more panicked. Whatever set her off must have rattled her to the core.

He was raised not to make assumptions about people, a maxim he stuck to despite being on the receiving end of so many harsh judgements, so Soul didn't want to jump to conclusions about whatever was going on with the Palmtop Tiger. Judging by the last hateful glance she threw at him across the cafeteria on her way out, it wasn't anything good.

"Fine," Kid said. He and Blake had argued throughout Albarn's dramatic exit. "You win. Use your power ranger names, I don't care. Just never refer to me by that abominable name ever again."

His surrender was bitter and reluctant, but it was all Blake needed. "I knew you'd see it my way, Dean," Blake replied with a wink. "Anyways, if our fraternity names confused you so much, you shoulda just said so…"

The remainder of dinner passed without incident (though Blake did get some pasta sauce on Kid's pants) and the three parted ways. Kid spent a couple hours at the library every night to help poor souls navigate their way through the perilous straits of calculus. Blake left to rendezvous with "the bae," with whom he expected to spend the whole night. Soul, having no life outside the music department, his two friends, and Skyrim, headed to the Gallows.

He was walking through the residential quad, pretending he didn't see people trudge through the mud so they could bypass him on the sidewalk, when he heard a familiar voice wail an even more familiar word.

"_HERMANOOO_!" Soul's head snapped to the side, seeking out the source of the voice he had been thinking about all summer-Patty Thompson. His eyes darted around, searching for the person Patty must be speaking to, and when he saw no one, he realized that she was actually talking to him. Their first class of the semester was tomorrow, and while he had already thought of some things to talk about when they reunited in Spanish, he was woefully unprepared to meet her now. She bounded towards him with the grace and energy of a deer, and downright bounced when she landed right in front of him.

"Heya! Remember me? From Spanish class all last year?" Patty asked in wonderful, heart-melting English.

Soul tried to respond, but his tongue must have swollen up or something. _¡Habla!_ dammit! "Yeah I remember," he struggled out. "You're Patty Thompson. Linguistics major."

"Whoah, you even remembered my major!" Patty said, surprised and delighted. Soul cursed himself for accidentally letting on the small fact that he basically remembered everything about her. His red face and stammering voice were the absolute _opposite_ of playing it cool. "I just saw you walking and wanted to say hey."

_Holy shit, holy shit. _"Yeah, hi." Basically anything Soul said to her was going to qualify as awkward small talk, but even with such low expectations he couldn't muster anything coherent. "What you doing?"

"Huh?"

"What _are _you doing?" He corrected, cheeks flaring.

Patty's mouth formed a cute 'o.' "Heading to work. I'm starting at a pizza delivery downtown now. There's more money in it than being a barista, and it's easy to work around my RA schedule."

"_You're _an RA?" Soul asked incredulously. Realizing he sounded a bit _too _surprised, he backpedaled. "I mean, I just didn't know you would want to do that."

She gave him a pragmatic shrug. "Eh, room and board is free, my meal plan is discounted, and I get a stipend. For that, I can handle a couple dozen freshmen. Anywayyys," Patty already began to walk away from him backwards. "I gotta run. Those pizzas aren't sentient enough to deliver themselves, which is good because if they were, humanity would be doooomed!"

Soul said a nervous goodbye as Patty skipped away just as abruptly as she arrived. During the rest of the walk home he had a bit more spring in his step. Yeah, sure, his first English conversation with Patty turned out to be about pizza and jobs, but even small progress was progress. He took the win.

Soul's buoyant mood made the walk to the Gallows fly by. Unlike the other dorms, the Gallows housed upperclassmen who opted to stay on-campus instead of finding housing on their own. Sophomores normally were not allowed to live in the large, spacious building, but Kid pulled a few strings with his dad and got their small group set up in a suite. Three bedrooms, a living room, a compact kitchen, and a fancy bathroom was a pretty sweet deal, even if meant keeping the place impeccably clean to satisfy Kid's neurosis.

Once inside, Soul quickly retreated to left-most room in the apartment-his room. Not bothering to shut his bedroom door, he unzipped the largest pocket of his backpack and dumped its contents on the floor. Books, scraps of paper, and uncapped pens fell out in a scattered pile, and he lazily shifted through them to find the syllabus for his Art History class. Soul didn't mind mess because there was always someone there to clean it up for him. College was supposed to be his big wake-up call when it came to domestic chores, but then, well, _Kid_ happened.

He was mulling over whether he should reward himself by starting the night off with a study break when something strange caught his eye. Underneath his thin Spanish textbook was what looked like a letter. Soul was by no means an organized person, but he would have remembered if he received a letter somewhere. He picked it up to examine it more closely, only to discover that the envelope wasn't addressed to him at all.

_To: DT "Kid" Kidman._

_From: Maka Albarn (You don't have to open this if you don't want to!)_

Raising an eyebrow, Soul slowly flipped the letter over to the other side, where it was sealed with a heart-shaped sticker.

"Kid, you dog," Soul muttered aloud. Albarn's weird behavior at dinner didn't seem so random anymore. She must have tried to plant this into Kid's bag while it was left unattended, but slipped it into Soul's by mistake. And what was inside said letter? Well, judging by the heart emblazoned on the back, it looked like a certain pig-tailed somebody had a burning crush on a certain roommate of his. Fancy that. He could only imagine her frustration when he gave it back to her. Though it was dead obvious what it was for, she couldn't do anything to him because Soul could always claim that it was sealed and he had no idea-

While fumbling with the letter, the sticker popped off and the envelope flapped open. "_SHIT!" _Soul exclaimed, quickly resealing it. How many times did she put on and remove this sticker? The adhesive was barely usable. It flapped open again, defying him, and somewhere between clutching the envelope and smushing the sticker, Soul made a horrifying discovery.

There was nothing inside.

He eventually got the sticker to do its damn job and stick to something, but the fact remained that it held nothing, concealed nothing. It made him wonder what exactly was going through Maka's mind when she stuffed the envelope into his backpack. She must have been running on a mad amount of adrenaline to not only deliver a love letter to the wrong person, but to also forget the actual letter altogether. It was stupid. It was impulsive. It sounded exactly like something he would do, in similar circumstances.

Uncertain of what to do with this empty, paperthin envelope, he stuck it inside his desk drawer. If Soul was good at anything, it was putting off potentially unpleasant interactions until the last minute.

Soul decided to take that study break. He figured that completing a couple quests in Skyrim would give him time to mull over what to do with the envelope, but when his mind wandered away from fighting dragons or pick pocketing NPCs, it was to think about Patty and the excitement in her blue eyes as she skipped across the quad to greet him.

It was only 9 p.m. when his eyelids began to feel heavy, and the graphics on the TV screen blurred. Too lazy to even make it to his bed, Soul left the game running as he fell asleep on the couch.

He felt like his eyes had only been shut for a second when a muffled crash woke him up. The epic score on the Skyrim load screen continued to play on a loop, and Soul rubbed his eyes languidly stretched. All of the lights were off, but his hazy memory contained no recollection of switching them off. Perhaps Blake or Kid returned home already. Soul did leave the front door unlocked for them, after all.

The darkness beckoned him to fall back asleep, but sound of shuffling papers drew Soul's attention towards his own bedroom door.

"Hey guys?" Soul asked, warily rising from the couch. "Blake, is that you? Dude, jumping out at me in the dark gets old after the third time. Seriously." He switched off the television, causing the roaring chanting and orchestra of the Skyrim OST blip into silence.

Shaking his head, Soul lumbered to his bedroom and opened the door, fully prepared for Blake's trademark howl.

Instead of hearing Blake scream in his face, something hard smacked Soul on the forehead. He stumbled backwards, reeling from the pain spreading across his skull. In the darkness he saw a slight figure in his room, silhouetted by the sparse moonlight pouring through his window. It advanced towards him with menace, only to slip on the pile of papers he had deposited on the floor early that evening. Judging by his or her girly squeak, the person in his room was not Blake Barrett.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, the mysterious silhouette gained a more definitive, human shape. Wait a second. Soul _recognized _this teeny person. As the figure recovered from tripping over his stuff, he took the opportunity to fumble with the light switch.

The light flickered on, and Maka Albarn glowered at him from his bedroom floor.

"ALBARRRN!?" Soul shouted in a mixture of horror and surprise. Realizing she was out of ammunition, Albarn scrambled towards his bookcase and started grabbing textbooks off the shelves. Soon, his Art History textbook was flying across the room, followed by this Spanish workbook, and his copy of "Watchmen." She even flung his thick Music Theory book with practiced finesse, and in an astonishing display of hand-eye coordination, Soul caught it between the palms of his hands before the spinning object hit his forehead. It was the most ninja thing he had ever done. Blake would never believe it.

Unfortunately, Maka was upon him before he could congratulate himself or celebrate. Abandoning her position by the bookshelf, she lunged at him like a ferocious cat, prompting him to dodge her by ducking to the ground. This was a bad move, because suddenly she was on top of his back, using her entire weight to pin him to the floor with a painful _thump. _Winded, he didn't struggle when she flipped him onto his back and sat on his torso. The fact that she mounted him while only wearing a flouncy plaid skirt didn't concern her in the least.

Soul had fantasized plenty of times about being straddled by an authoritative woman, but none of those dreams went like this.

"Where is it?" she seethed through her teeth. "It's not in your bag, it's not on your desk. Where is it?" Before he could answer her, Maka's face went white. "You-you read it didn't you? Didn't you?"

"I don't know!" Soul answered. He was desperately trying to avoid her face, which loomed above him like an angry sun. "I haven't read anything. I don't read. I don't know what you are talking about!"

Maka's nostrils flared. "If you don't know what I'm talking about, then how come it's not in your bag, where I put it?"

She had him there. "Oh, the letter! It's in my desk drawer, alright? I'll give it to you if you let mMMMRPH!" One small hand smothered his words, and the other one secured on of his wrists. His free hand, laying by his side, was pinned by her knee.

"This is a nightmare," Maka said ruefully. "This isn't how it was supposed to go. I screwed up. I screwed it all up." Her hand remained clamped over his mouth, and she looked at him imploringly. "If it means anything, I never meant for you to get caught in the middle of this. I don't break into people's apartments, ever, and I don't like hitting people, and I really-" Soul irreverently rolled his eyes, and she shook his face in retaliation. "Hey! I'm being serious, you asshat! I genuinely feel bad about what I have to do to you!"

Still gagged, Soul gave her an alarmed look. "I'm sorry, Soul," Maka said. Finally releasing his mouth, and before he could ask her how she knew his name, Maka produced a hardback copy of "Moby Dick" from her pocket, or her jacket, or _somewhere_, and she gripped it in her hands. "It's just gonna be a light concussion," she said slowly. "The softest one I can give. Just enough to smack some brain cells and blur your recent memory. Don't worry, I'll get you immediate medical attention."

"Well aren't you the goddess of congeniality," Soul said with caustic bite. Maka in fact did look like a goddess, her vibrant eyes burning with elemental fury and her hair framing her face like a golden halo. She was stunning in every sense of the word, but it was verb-form that left him paralyzed as her mouth twisted with ire.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" She raised the novel above his head, an executioner raising her axe above the chopping block. "It's either you forget or I skip town, and I'm _not_ leaving." Her hand quivered in the air as she gathered her resolve, and Soul swallowed. He had never read "Moby Dick," but it certainly looked like it could give him more that a light concussion. "I will do anything it takes to make you forget that _stupid love lett_-"

Soul shut his eyes and yelled, "_The envelope was empty!"_

After one long, tense moment, "Moby Dick" clattered to the floor, missing his skull completely. Maka's arm remained in the air, stock still with shock. "It was...empty?"

"Yeah," Soul said, breathless. After being sat on for ten minutes and narrowly escaping head trauma, he felt like he just ran a marathon. "There was nothing for me to read." Maka rolled onto the balls of her feet, finally releasing Soul from her death grip, and she sat against the wall. "I guess it's a good thing you put it in my backpack instead of Kid's," Soul said as he heaved himself off the floor. "Now he doesn't know how bad you messed up."

Maka stared ahead into space, unbelieving. Soul got back to his feet and ambled over to his desk. The envelope, empty and lifeless, was still where he left it. Part of him feared she would still concuss him, so when he handed her the envelope, he swiftly retreated on to his bed. Yeah, having the high ground would help him if she decided to come at him again. Maybe he would actually fight back this time, not that he really knew how. He had never hit anybody his entire life, much less a girl.

But there was nothing ferocious or vengeful about the Palmtop Tiger. Maka pulled her knees to her chest, methodically unsealed the envelope, and peered inside for a single second, as if she was afraid of what she would find there. Of course there was nothing, and she released a small whimper and rested her forehead on her knees.

Though she had not spoken since threatening to concuss him, Soul knew that he had nothing to fear from Maka now. In fact, his real worry now was that she was going to start crying in his room, which was honestly more terrifying. This was the Palmtop Tiger, the girl who KO'd him with one punch. He never expected to see her cry, let alone in his room, and worst yet, he empathized with her. She had attempted to do the very same thing he had been obsessing over for months, except with a lot more courage and a little less tact. After she sniffed once, he felt compelled to do something, anything to help her feel less alone.

"Don't be embarrassed," Soul said. His voice felt dry and brittle, but he hoped she could hear his sincerity. "Really, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Just wait a minute."

He hopped off his bed and kneeled onto the ground. A cardboard box lay swathed in shadows, sitting all the way against the wall. He army-crawled into the darkness and pulled the box out into the open. Though he didn't know the origin of this impulse, Soul did know that he hated seeing the tumult of rejection and heartache written so plainly on Maka's face. She had to know-no, she had to be _shown_ that she wasn't the only person struggling. He had to show her that beneath his demonic eyes and her angel hair, they were one and the same.

"Behold," Soul said. He pushed the box towards Maka and kneeled across from her on the carpeted floor. She gave him a questioning look before picking up a random CD cover. "I bet you've never seen one of those before," he said, earning a suspicious glance from Maka. "So, there's this girl I like, and those are all the mixtapes I've made for her. Those on top are the driving playlists; I've got one for every season. I don't have a car, but you know...And if you dig deep enough, you'll probably find the original songs I tried to compose for her. I'm shitty at lyrics, so its mostly just sheet music."

Maka drew another CD out of the box and wrinkled her nose. "Baby-making Tunes #6: Candles and Rose Petals," she read with quiet disgust. "Why the _hell _do you have six playlists for having sex?"

"First of all, there are nine," Soul said candidly, causing Maka's expression to sour. "And second of all, they're for different, you know, moods and holidays and stuff. If you listened to them, you would hear the difference."

"I am _never_ listening to one of your gross mixtapes," she said, dropping the CD case back into the box. Though she had only just vowed to never listen to any of his playlists, she continued to sift through the box, withdrawing a dark red CD case and opening it with interest.

Sighing, Soul decided it was time to level with her. "The point is that even though I don't have the balls to admit how I feel about her, I'm still not ashamed of it. And you shouldn't be either! Hell, you actually _did_ something. That's half the battle. Honestly, I think all you have to do is put yourself out there. Stay positive, be brave, take a chance."

"For Patricia Thompson." Maka read aloud with narrow eyes.

Soul nodded along in agreement. "Exactly, be confident just like Patty-" His mouth felt uncannily dry as he stopped short. Maka wasn't just examining all of his mixtapes. She was opening them up, scrutinizing them, and worst of all, _reading_ the dedication blurbs he scrawled in his jagged handwriting.

For the first time since they met, Maka's eyes swept up and down Soul's body, appraising him. "Wowwww," she said in one long, dry breath. "You aim _high._ Patty is so way out of your league."

It stung to be dismissed by someone arguably as loserish and he was, but he also couldn't help but agree. "You know Patty, huh?"

"She's my best friend."

The sound of every string in an entire orchestra snapping mid-symphony could not convey Soul's heart-stopping horror. "_What?" _

"If your plan was to make me pity you enough to not give you a concussion," Maka said, dropping in the CD back into the box. "You totally succeeded. God, now I feel like I need to shower for like six weeks."

"You and me both," Soul agreed. The situation was finally defused. Now all he had to do was get her to leave him in peace and put this whole incident behind him. "Look, why don't you just take your empty love letter and go. Your mission is already a fail, and it's late. Just go home."

"Yeah, sure," Maka said, slowly getting back to her feet. She cast a disparaging look in Soul's direction and straightened the pleats in the skirt. "Patty's gonna get a real kick out of this one."

Soul's mouth fell open a little. He had just bore his entire soul to this girl, who by the way had broken into his apartment, manhandled his textbooks, and tackled him to the ground-and she was gonna betray him. "You ungrateful little snot."

"Sorry, not sorry," she murmured. The blonde refused to look him in the eye, but her tone remained as unyielding as steel. "I can't trust you to keep my secret, so it's game over for both of us." Maka's sense of self-preservation was definitely twisted. He didn't know why he expected anything else from the Palmtop Tiger, the girl who shoots first and asks questions _never_. Soul set his jaw. If she insisted that they both go down in flames together, so be it.

He walked her out of his room and towards the door, numb with dread. Tomorrow was his first Spanish Cinema class with Patty. Was she going to greet with friendly enthusiasm like before, or was she going to avoid him like a stalkerish leper? Soul could find comfort in Maka's similarly stricken face. At least she was just as royally screwed as him.

"Pretty swanky place," Maka said with offhanded interest. "You must have really cozied up to someone in HRA to room here." It was clear that she was just trying to fill the silence until she was out the door, home free.

"Well when your roommate is the university president's son, you get a few perks," Soul said. Maka's back stiffened, and she slowly turned around to face Soul, her face white as a sheet. "What?" Soul asked. "Did you not know Kid-"'

As if on cue, the front door to the dorm swung open, and Kid flew through in a blur. He didn't register Maka's presence, nor did he give Soul more than a perfunctory hello before he dashed towards the middle bedroom of the apartment

"Hey Soul, just getting my green highlighter, can't study calculus without my green highlighter, dear god what was I _thinking _leaving it-" Kid's ranting became muffled as he entered his room and closed the door behind him. Maka was standing stock still with the wide, terrified eyes of a deer caught in the middle of an intersection. She shot Soul a desperate look, a silent cry for help.

"-and she offered me a _yellow _one," Kid scoffed as he swiftly exited his room. "Can't use yellow, yellow is strictly for polisci. Highlighter yellow is a terrible, garish color anyway and-oh, hello." Gold eyes honed in one Maka's slightly quivering form. She stared right back at him, stupefied, but if Kid noticed her strange behavior he didn't let it on. "I'm so rude, barging in and ranting away. This is your friend from earlier, right?" Kid asked, turning to Soul.

Maka's awe-stricken eyes tore away from Kid and locked with Soul's own. Underneath the fire and brimstone of her personality, there was a cold and deep-seated terror. If Soul was going to give her up, humiliate her in front of the boy she was desperately in love with, this was his chance. She audibly swallowed, but her gaze didn't waver. A word from him, and she would be out of both Soul and Kid's life for good. It would be the cruelest, most perfect revenge.

But, despite all the whispers about his so-called criminal record, Soul Evans was far from cruel.

He finally cracked a crooked grin. "Yeah, Maka. She came over so we could hang out." The corners of Maka's mouth twitched into smile and her shoulders relaxed with relief. "It's too bad, she was actually just leav-"

"Exchanging numbers," Maka blurted over him. Without giving Soul even a look of warning, she whipped her cellphone out of her pocket and freaking _pegged_ it at him, hitting him in the center of his rib cage. The phone bounced off his chest, and after Soul recoiled in pain he juggled it between his hands, thankfully not shattering it on the ground. Skeptical of her intentions, Soul input his information into her contacts while Maka and Kid engaged in stilted small talk.

"I've seen you around haven't I?" Kid said. "I'm sure of it, we've had a class together before."

"Yep, literary theory and american lit," Maka said with a strange warble in her voice.

"I remember now! Do you have class with Soul too?"

"No, no, I, we-" She glanced at Soul.

"We have a mutual friend," Soul spoke up. He tossed Maka's phone back to her, which she easily caught. "Girl in my Spanish class."

Several beats of silence passed between them. Kid beamed at Maka, who immediately avoided his gaze by glancing at Soul, who avoided _her _gaze by looking at the floor, which drew Kid's attention away from Maka, which allowed her to ogle him, and finally caused Soul to look back with a distinct expression of vexation and boredom. "Well that's great," Kid said, breaking the silence. He glanced at the glittering watch on his left hand. "Sorry, I really must run. I'm supposed to be at the library, but I'll see you both around another time!" He gave Soul a small thumbs up before promptly exiting the apartment and slamming the door behind him.

Maka released a long, dramatic exhale and flopped onto the couch. She rubbed her face and adopted the haggard, exhausted look of an overworked, underslept professor, and when she made no move to get up or leave, Soul joined her.

"What's your game?" Maka finally asked. There was still fight left in her, even if she was emotionally drained. "Why did you cover for me? I'm not going to let you blackmail me if that's what you're thinking."

"Don't accuse me of something I'm not gonna do," Soul responded. "Sometimes people do things for reasons other than to start a fight or screw you over."

"Oh."

"You must like him a lot," Soul continued. He looked up at the ceiling with a cocky, amused grin. "When you aren't committing B&E, you're just a big nerd who gets tongue tied in front of your crush. It's hilarious."

"Shut up. Hey, is this your real number or a fake?"

Soul looked back at her and saw that Maka was scrolling through her phone. "What kind of question is that? Of course it's real. Wait, do you use fake numbers?"

"I give most guys my papa's number," she said. "It's a life-saver, you have no idea."

Their parting was awkward. She mumbled a few apologies, he responded with a few assurances, and they both said farewell with some variation of "see you later." There was no malice or ill will between them. It was almost like they were friends.

Before falling asleep that night, this time in his real bed, the screen of his phone lit up with a new message from an unknown number.

_This is Maka. Good luck in Spanish tomorrow. :)_


	3. Brontide

**Hey guys! Thanks for all the reviews and support so far! I appreciate all of your feedback and love. Thanks to Professor Maka and Khaleesimaka for betaing.**

The next morning, Soul was awakened by the increasingly familiar, but nonetheless uncomfortable sensation of someone sitting on him. He couldn't see through the sleep in his eyes, and he massaged the inner corners with his thumb and forefinger.

"Makaaaa,' he sleepily mumbled. His voice felt a little strained from all the screaming and begging for his life last night. "Get off of meee."

"GODDAMN SO IT IS TRUE!" Despite the amount of crust sealing them shut, Soul's eyelids pried themselves apart in order to make unfocused eye contact with Blake Barrett. Although Soul was essentially blind without glasses or contact lenses, there was no mistaking that blur of blue. His roommate's face hovered over him, wearing what was certain to be a wide, smug grin. "Dude," Blake said. "You have some 'splainin' to do."

"Fuck off!" Soul wheezed. Blake was much shorter than Soul, but he was five foot and five inches of pure muscle. When his roommate finally rolled off of him and onto the floor, it felt like being freed from the crushing pressure of a bag of bricks.

"I was all cuddled up with Tsubaki when I got this," Blake said, thrusting his smartphone into Soul's face. After he absently reached for his glasses on his nightstand and put them on, Soul screwed up his face and squinted at the phone screen. It was a text conversation between Kid and Blake.

_Kidoferson (11:15pm): I have news. Soul might be _alright_ after all. He has a friend over right now!_

_Kidoferson (11:21pm): Have you heard of a Maka before?_

_Black*Star (11:21pm): JESUS FUCK_

Soul pursed his lips and further scrutinized the texts. "Do you guys…talk about me or something?"

Blake rolled his eyes and snatched his phone out of Soul's hands. "So me and Kid have long, meaningful discussions about your well being. Big whoop, who cares." Soul rose from his bed and stood on unsteady feet. Without speaking to or acknowledging his roommate, he ambled out of his room and towards their shared bathroom. Blake was close on his heels. "The point is," he persisted. "You brought a girl back here. I can't believe you brought a girl back here without talking it through with me first!"

Squeezing a dollop of Crest onto his toothbrush, Soul responded with a noncommittal grunt. "'Snot like I planned on having a guest over," he said before brushing his teeth. No truer words could have described the events of last night.

"And the Palmtop Tiger!" Blake ranted. In the bathroom mirror, Soul exchanged a weary look with his own reflection. If only his brushing was loud enough to dull Blake's voice. "Mad respect, man. Even a god like myself can't crack that tough nut. One time, Red Star hit on her and she pulled his pinky finger all the way back to his wrist. Writes funny cuz of it now." Soul spat and wiped his mouth. That sounded like something Maka would do. If she targeted his fingers instead of his head, his piano career would be over before it even started. Soul would rather be concussed than crippled.

"What was it even like?" Blake asked. "You have to fill me in on the details. Shit, I can't even imagine it. Well I can imagine her screaming like a hyena, but other than that..."

To avoid answering his nosy friend, Soul began the delicate process of putting in his contact lenses. With one damp lens balanced on his fingertip, he leaned towards the mirror. Details. What details could he even tell Blake? Though they never said it out loud, Soul assumed that the parts where Maka tackled him to the ground and threatened to give him a concussion were to be kept on the DL. He sure as hell couldn't reveal the fact that they had enormous crushes on their respective best friends; everyone knew Blake was tragically incapable of keeping secrets. Even so, the fact remained that Soul had no obligation to help Maka. There was no loyalty between them-was there?

Soul gingerly placed his second contact onto his eye and blinked rapidly. As his vision cleared, so did his mind. It didn't matter how well they did or didn't know each other. Betrayal of any kind was uncool, not gonna happen, end of story.

"Well," Soul finally said, leading his roommate out of their cramped bathroom and back into their living room. "Obviously she's kinda intense, but Maka's cool. We had fun."

Blake's hazel eyes searched Soul's face with growing suspicion, then disappointment, then anger. "I can't believe this," he said. "When Tsu and I fucked for the first time, I recapped it to you in such epic detail that everyone on this side of campus sprung a gargantuan boner. And you won't even do the same. You are dead to me. I excommunicate you."

Soul was overcome with a blush so fierce that his face felt like it would sizzle and melt right off his skull. Classic Blake, jumping to conclusions in the worst way. "Just wait a fucking minute," he sputtered. "We didn't-I never said-I didn't sleep with her. There's nothing to recap."

"Oh." Undeterred, Blake waggled his eyebrows. "But something happened."

"No, it didn't."

Now Blake looked like a disappointed parent. "Dude, did you even try?"

"_No!_ We're just friends! Not even, we hung out one time. Could you drop it already?" He stalked off into his room while Blake mumbled his apologies. There were some phrases Soul couldn't stand no matter who said them, and 'Did you even try?' was at the top of the list. It was wrong of him to be so angry, but sometimes it was easier for Soul to be the monster everyone thought he was than the easygoing, likable person he wanted to be.

Soul's first class wasn't until the blissful hour of 11 a.m., and thanks to Blake, he lost an entire hour of sleep. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with the extra time on his hands, and he pondered maybe cleaning his room or dicking around on the internet until his phone vibrated on his nightstand. The message he saw caused him to squint, just in case his contacts were deceiving him.

_Maka (8:50): Can we get coffee today sometime? I need to talk to you._

He found Maka alone at a booth in Deathbucks. The tall height of the cold, metal tables and the wide distance between the red leather seats made for an awkward fit, especially for someone as petite as Maka. Sitting in her oversized seat with her arms clasped on the table, she was downright tiny. It wasn't just her size that was startling. With a golden halo framing her sharp green eyes, Maka looked otherworldly, almost as if she was the afterimage of a dream. In front of her were two steaming coffee cups. Measuring a few inches under six feet, Soul was able to slide into the booth without looking like a Keebler elf.

"Morning," Maka said with cheer. He responded with a polite-ish grunt. "I hope you slept okay. I wanted to meet here so I could apologize, about everything. It was one hundred percent an overreaction, and I'm sorry."

She pushed one of the coffee cups towards him-a peace offering. Soul eyed it warily. "Is that decaf?"

"No."

"Apology accepted." Soul lifted the cup to his lips and drank up some bitter, caffeinated goodness. This was just what he needed after Blake's rude wake-up call.

Maka smiled at him a little too broadly for comfort. "Great! Let's start over. We should hang out again."

Soul raised his stark eyebrows. "Uh, okay."

"Tonight, your place. How does that sound? I'll be there at seven."

He could see where this was going, and he placed his coffee cup back on the table. "You can't bribe me with one cup of coffee to let you stalk my roommate."

This made Maka unexpectedly angry, and she nearly lunged at him when she rose from her seat and slapped her hands onto the table. Her face was scarlet. "I'm not a stalker! I just want to be friends!"

"And the fact that you have the mega hots for Kid has _nothing_ to do with that."

She scowled at him and sank back into her seat. The gears in her mind were turning. "Fine," she said with narrowed eyes. "If the gift of my friendship and free beverages aren't enough for you, I have another proposal. We can…" Maka's eyes darted over his shoulder, scanning the room for any secret listeners. Her body language became more minute, discreet, as if the very words she was speaking were blasphemy. "...help each other. You help me with my, uh, problem, and I'll help you with yours."

Now that was an interesting proposal. Soul could hardly speak to Patty without clamming up because they rarely interacted outside of class. Maka was his way in. There was something vaguely conspiratorial about this whole deal, and he would be lying if he said he wasn't intrigued by it.

As usual, it was his last shreds of Evans pride that got in the way. "No."

"What?" Clearly, that wasn't what Maka was hoping to hear. Her sharp voice drew some attention around Deathbucks, and to avoid the strange looks, Maka ducked her head and spoke in a heated whisper. "I learned two things last night: One, you're all teeth with no bite. And two, we're both in the same hopeless, sexually frustrated boat. Face it, you're never gonna get a chance to scatter rose petals or light candles for Patty without a little help from me."

He grit his teeth and tried to ignore the heat spreading across his cheeks. If she thought throwing Baby-Making Tunes #6 in his face was going to sway him, she was sorely mistaken. "If that's all you took away from last night, then you can forget it," Soul said, crossing his arms. "Actually, I don't even need your help. I can ask someone out without her twerpy little friend giving me dumb relationship advice."

"YoucallmeatwerpagainandI'llkickthelivingshitoutofyoudoyouunderstand?" It was worth it to see Maka stew with restrained hatred, even if they did draw even more suspicious glares from surrounding Deathbucks patrons. Antagonizing the Palmtop Tiger was not the smartest thing he had ever done, but it was becoming a hilarious habit.

The two stared at each other with mirrored passion and frustration. There was nothing left to discuss or do except leave. They slid out of the booth at the same time, allowing Soul to finally get a good look at her. Beneath her girlish pigtails, Maka wore a lean cut leather jacket with an asymmetrical zipper that slightly curled around her torso. She was also wearing a red skirt, similar to the one from last night, with chunky combat boots.

Soul thrust his fists into the pockets of his own leather jacket. No wonder people were looking at them strangely-they looked like two members of the same biker gang, plotting away over identical cups of coffee.

"It's a good thing I left my skirt at home," Soul said. "Otherwise this would be awkward."

"Shut it," Maka said, her voice dripping with spite. "Let me know if you change your mind. I might consider re-extending my offer."

His face heated up with a mixture of embarrassment and anger, and he flashed her his most smug, infuriating smile. "Oh, I won't."

On his way back to his dorm, Soul's face settled into a grim scowl. Other students gave him a wide berth on the sidewalk, but he paid them no heed. He wasn't going to do Maka fucking Albarn any favors, not when she believed he was incapable of asking Patty on a date, something he had been day dreaming about for a whole year. He was twenty goddamn years old. He could do this. He was gonna waltz into Spanish class and ask her right then and there. If she said yes, he could rub it in Palmtop's face and prepare for what was assuredly the beginning of a very beautiful relationship-with Patty, not Maka. If she-Patty-said no, he would respect her decision and drink his disappointment away in private where she-Maka-could not gloat over his misery. Maybe when his heart had mended a little, Soul would see if either girl was interested in still being friends.

Spanish Cinema crept closer and closer. During his 11 a.m. piano practicum, Soul's fingers danced over the ivories of their own accord. The rumbling of his piano echoed his thoughts, which were consumed by the traces of a daydream mixed with the stampede of anxiety. What if Maka was right? What if he was an awkward, stuttery mess when he walked into class? Patty seemed to consider him a friendly acquaintance, but he didn't think she would find his nervousness charming or attractive. It burned him up to admit it, but maybe he was wrong to turn Maka down so fast.

After his piece was over, his professor cleared his throat. "Evans," he said. "That was well done, wonderful. Now do it again, but this time when you play, be a little less…" The professor waved his hand in the air, almost as if the perfect word was floating out of reach. "_...sinister."_

The piano keys thundered as he dropped his hands and rested his forehead on the instrument's shining wood.

After class, he ate lunch alone, hoping that some solitary face-stuffing would calm his nerves and dispel the queasiness gathering in his stomach. It was natural, normal, to feel nervous before you bared your soul to another person, no pun intended. A little fear and anxiety didn't mean he needed help. There was certainly no chance in hell that he was going to take Maka up on her offer. _I'm a grown-ass man_, he reminded himself. He had this.

Soul glanced at his phone while finishing off the last of his hamburger and noted that the closer it got to 2 p.m., the more time seemed to speed up. At this rate, he was going to be late for day one of Spanish.

His walk to the academic building was a blur, and once inside he dove into the men's room. He needed to wash his face, check his hair, steady his stupid shaking hands. Catching his reflection in the mirror accomplished the exact opposite. He rubbed the fringe of his white hair between his thumb and forefinger. The strands felt brittle and greasy, probably due to yesterday's slept-in hair gel. Sighing, he silently cursed all of the hair products that couldn't do their damn jobs and make him look human. The rest of him didn't fare much better. As if his eyes, the color of clotted blood, weren't bad enough, the smokey half-moons sagging underneath them added a latent serial killer charm that was sure to make Patty swoon, provided felons were her thing.

Yeah, right.

The one consolation he had was that this wasn't a cold approach. Patty and Soul knew each other. Just yesterday, she went out of her way to say hello. People didn't just do that, not to him. It might not have signaled romantic interest, but at least it meant that she liked him a little, that he was cool enough for her to go out of her way. That thought alone spurred him forward.

When Soul opened the classroom door, fifteen pairs of eyes immediately flicked towards him. He was one of the last students to arrive. After a hesitant pause in the door frame, Soul gathered his courage and surveyed the room. At this point, he had been in enough Spanish classes that he knew most his classmates. In the back corner was Kim Diehl, who had apparently dyed her hair pink over the summer, picking at her fingernails. Sitting closer to the front of the classroom was Harvar D'Eclair, who didn't seem to have changed at all since the spring, save for his thicker gauges.

And of course, Patty was sitting in the middle, doodling an animal print all over her notebook. She looked up at him and gave a slight smile and a little wave. There were no open seats near her. It took a miracle to keep his usual, impassive mask in place, but Soul managed to return the wave and hurry to an open seat towards the back, out of sight, where he could mentally rehearse what he was going to say to her.

Once he sat down, the professor cleared her throat. "We're going to start out with an icebreaker," the professor explained with zero enthusiasm. "Just tell the class your name, major, hometown, and a fun fact. Now who-"

Patty stood up immediately. "My name is Patty, I'm a linguistics major, I'm from New York City, and I never say no to a high five!"

"Hell yeah," Harvar said with a raised hand. Patty whipped her hand backward and smacked his palm. As she sat down, Soul saw Harvar rub his stinging hand and stifle a whimper.

Students stood up one by one of their own accord, summarizing their existences into a few meager facts.

"The name is Harvar, and I'm an environmental engineer. I'm from San Fran, and this summer I went hiking in Nepal and chilled with sherpas."

"Hi, I'm Kim Diehl. I'm a premed student, and I'm from Atlanta. My fun fact is that I sometimes lick my elbow for money. Tweet me for deets."

"My name is Soul. I'm majoring in music composition with a concentration in jazz studies. I'm from Long Island. My brother is famous."

The class started to watch the first movie on their syllabus immediately after the introductions. Whatever confidence he had cobbled together was dulled by rapidly speaking Spanish actors and the lingering hollowness that settled in Soul's ribcage every time he mentioned his brother. There was a time and place for everything, and maybe the first Spanish class of the year was not the most strategic opportunity to ask someone out. There was a lot going on, and now that he was here, it seemed a little inconsiderate to put Patty on the spot so soon in the semester. Better to put it off, rally the troops, perform some reconnaissance.

Though it was totally his own, independent, and not-at-all-influenced-by-Maka decision to forget about asking Patty out, Soul couldn't help but feel a little deflated as he left class. Any hope he had of casually walking or chatting with Patty were dashed when she skipped on ahead, barreling through the hallway, disregarding the oofs and watch its! of her peers as she went. Soul, having no classes or commitments to rush to, stood at the classroom threshold so he could wistfully watch her go. He should have asked her for a high-five. It would have hurt, and their hands would have touched for only a split-second, but his sappy heart craved affectionate, friendly contact no matter how brief or painful it was.

He was rubbing his fringe again and staring at the sidewalk when he saw-no, heard-Maka Albarn from across the quad. She was standing in the grass with her hands on her hips, arguing with a tall, dirty blonde girl that Soul didn't recognize. Maka's indignant voice really carried, which was impressive considering the quad's terrible acoustics.

As Soul began to turn around and head home, Patty bounded into the picture. She was laughing, smiling, beaming. Her hair was the color of fresh spun gold. Not for the first time, Soul was struck by how pretty she was and how happy she looked. Something in his chest tugged in her direction, and he felt warmth rush from his stomach to his fingertips.

He could make her happy, if he tried, if she'd let him. Soul would do whatever, go wherever she wanted, it wouldn't be a big deal. Not if they were together, and that's all Soul really wanted from a girlfriend-someone who would spend time with him, have fun with him, and maybe, eventually, love him. The problem was that as much as he would like to believe otherwise, he was pretty sure she wouldn't want to do anything even remotely date-like with him, not yet. All he could do was stand back and watch her happy, smiling face from afar, waiting in the wings until she invited him to join her at center stage.

If Maka was truly in the same boat as him like she said she was, then she could relate to his desire for intimacy more closely than anyone. And that was something he needed, Evans pride be damned.

He took out his phone, scrolled down to her contact, and tapped out a quick message. After sending the text, Soul turned around and walked the other way. He could already imagine the quizzical look on her face when she read it.

Despite texting her immediately after Spanish class, Soul was not able to rendezvous with Maka until after 9 p.m. They exchanged a chain of irritated text messages as Maka insisted they meet in his apartment and Soul soundly refused. "If you're going to come over again, you better earn it," he had said to her. She went on radio silence for a full two hours, during which Soul kept one eye on his phone at all times. If this was her idea of a punishment, then, well…. She was very good at thinking of annoying punishments.

She reopened communications after he had already eaten dinner.

_Maka (8:00): Let's get a drink at the Tombs. We have to discuss._

_Soul (8:00): wow so forward._

_Soul (8:15): yo i was just joking_

_Soul (8:23): yo_

_Soul (8:30): hey_

_Soul (8:49): i'm sorry alright_

_Maka (8:50): Meet at 9._

About a quarter of the DCU student body considered Thursday to be a part of the weekend. Maka Albarn was clearly not one of those people. The bar had a decent amount of patrons, and Maka looked too grumpy to handle any of them. She huddled inside an oversized sweater despite the heat outside. Truth be told, it was cute.

"Hey, again," Soul said. "You cold?"

"It smells like cigarette water in here," Maka said without humor. "I don't want my nicer clothes to stink." To his slight disappointment, Soul noticed that Maka did not buy him a free drink this time. He must have used up all her good will when he shot her down and called her a twerp. Hoping to inspire at least some camaraderie, he went to the bar and bought them both beers. Soul didn't have a fake ID, but he found that when he looked grumpy enough, the bartender simply didn't ask questions.

When he returned, Maka eyed the two sloshing glasses with suspicion. She took hers all the same. "Let's get to business," she said bluntly. "I'm guessing you changed your mind?" Soul nodded silently. "Figured. Patty is a difficult person to pin down even for a study session. Getting her attention long enough to take her on a date can be even worse, especially if you don't know what you're doing."

"And you're going to tell me what to do?" Soul asked dully.

"No, I'm going to help you get to know her better." Maka extracted a notebook and pen from underneath her sweater. He really needed to ask her how she managed to carry so many school supplies and books on her person. "I figure," Maka continued, opening the notebook to a fresh sheet, "that if you tell me all about Kid, and I tell you all about Patty, we can write that stuff down and use it to become their friends."

Soul snorted. "I don't see how a grocery list is gonna help us get laid any faster."

In the exact same way she rose during their morning coffee meetup, Maka aggressively leaned over the table. "That's not what this is about!" She wrung her notebook in her hands, creasing the pages. "This is about making connections with our very_ souls!_ This is about forgetting all the crap people say about us and showing everyone that we don't _hate_ men, we just don't have any tolerance for their bullshit!"

"...right."

"It's like-," Maka said, settling back down in her seat. "-a study guide. But for people. Wooing Kid is like a test, and you're the only person who can help me study. And I'll help you!" Her vibrant green gaze grew intense. "And then, we'll both get A's."

This was the most bizarre, cringe-worthy analogy Soul had ever heard. If she was really going to help him get closer to Patty, though, whatever floated Maka's weird English-major boat was fine with him. Though, to follow Maka's metaphor, he'd probably want a cheat sheet more than a study guide.

They sipped their beers for a while, content to ruminate on this strange arrangement of theirs in silence. Maka didn't have it as bad as he did, Soul decided. From what he could tell, she had loads of friends, she was really assertive and brave, and more importantly, she was just plain talented. Palmtop Tiger was fierce, but it was her intelligence and sharp, merciless snark that hamstrung unsuspecting men. She was a force to be reckoned with, a typhoon gaining momentum, and Soul was just a harmless cloud purring in the distance. He wasn't very good at making his own friends, so how he was going to help Maka befriend someone was beyond him.

"I don't see why you want my help," Soul blurted. Now that it was apparently his mission to collect some insight on one of his closest friends, it was becoming more and more obvious that Soul was utterly unqualified to talk about Kid at all, let alone become Maka's 'study buddy.' "To be honest, I don't even get why you would want to help me either. Why do you care about what happens to me?"

Maka's face softened with the elegant tragedy of a flower wilting at dusk. "Because, I get it. I'm not beautiful either." She took a sip of beer and paused. "This might not fix all of our problems, but at least if we try hard enough, we won't have to die virgins. That's a good enough reason for me."

Soul furrowed his eyebrows, instantly confused and concerned. "Who the hell gave you that idea?"

She rolled her eyes. "Well based on the goddamn shrine in your room, it isn't exactly a huge leap to assume-"

"No, not that," Soul said seriously. "I meant about you not being beautiful. Who's been telling you that?"

Her cheeks became rosy and warm. It wasn't the first time Soul had seen Maka flustered, but this was different. Her eyes, usually staring at him with practiced defiance or narrowed to suspicious slits, had grown wide with astonishment. The disbelief spreading across her features made Soul's chest ache.

"No one needs to tell me!" Maka finally said, indignant. "I can figure it out for myself!"

She rose from her seat and slung her handbag over her shoulder. "Hey!" Soul said. "That wasn't what I meant-"

"I'll text you tomorrow," Maka said. Her tone had once again become business-like and terse. "We'll figure out how we want to do this." Soul nodded silently, figuring that anything he said may dig his grave even deeper.

They parted without another word, and though they left on poor terms, Soul couldn't repress the buoyant, hopeful energy in his step.


End file.
